Monthly Archive for March, 2013

: March, 2013

In reality we began abandoning a free market in health care a century ago because it doesn’t work. The version of socialized medicine that we now live under costs a fortune, produces mediocre results, and fails to cover a large percentage of our citizens. Ironically, the greatest policy obstacle to a far freer, more entrepreneurial society rises from conservative fantasies about socialism. …

In a free market, goods and services are allocated through transactions entered into with mutual consent. No one is forced to buy from a particular supplier. No one is forced to engage in any transaction at all. If a price cannot be agreed, then a transaction simply does not occur. …

Blaming Bush for the Iraq War is attractive, but disingenuous. The joint resolution authorizing the war passed with strong bi-partisan support, including “yes” votes from Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. After it became undeniably obvious that the reasons for the Iraq War were all false we, the American public, responded by re-electing George Bush. The man was not a dictator. He did not act alone. Those Freedom Fries taste pretty bitter going down. …

In 1980, a suburban Philadelphia accountant named Ted Benna identified an unintended feature of the recently passed IRS Code section 401(k). The terms of the rule seemed to allow companies to create pre-tax retirement savings programs directed, owned, and controlled by employees. The IRS agreed with Banna’s interpretation. Thus began a lucrative new business and an accidental revolution in retirement finance.

There is deep insight in this nugget of historical arcana. First, the 401(k) was not part of any effort to kill the corporate pension. The shift toward individualized retirement was driven by ordinary people scrambling to cope with public policy choices that no longer made sense.

The solution is right under our noses. As the Cold War ended, a group of Republicans began to envision a new rationale for the Republican Party; one based less on fear of an enemy than on hope for better, freer, more prosperous lives for everyone. The Ownership Society, as originally conceived, would have been a bridge allowing ordinary Americans to begin to participate in a capital-driven economy.

The Ownership Society is less a specific policy than a political posture. In its first iteration it was strangled by ideological demands that forbade Republicans from even acknowledging, much less addressing, some of the weaknesses in the concept. Nonetheless it remains a potent idea, the one most relevant to the needs of our time.